Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Here are a few treats that I photographed last year, after a class I taught here in my home called "Sweet Treats." Basically, it incorporated food and scrap items to make unique gifts for the holiday season. I thought I'd share some of the ideas with you today!I covered pretzel rods in chocolate, added holiday sprinkles, and tied them together with ribbon. The headers and tag were made using my Cricut. Love that thing!These are some basic sugar cookies I cut with a cookie cutter. I spend one whole day baking a ton of cut outs, and another entire day decorating them. I freeze the cookies before frosting them, and they taste so much better when I do that. I used piping bags to do the icing, and red m&m's for the berries. When they're completely dry, I bagged them and tied with ribbons. (I keep these by my door during the holidays for friends who stop by.)Ah, one of our holiday favorites. White trash. Bagged in big cello bags and tied with ricrac. Here is the recipe:

White Trash

1 package mini pretzels

5 cups Cheerios

5 cups Corn Chex

2 cups salted peanuts

1 pound of M & M’s

2 packages vanilla chips

3 Tbsp. vegetable oil

In a large bowl, combine first 5 ingredients.Set aside.In a microwave-safe bowl, heat chips and oil on med for 2 minutes, stirring once.Stir until smooth.Pour over cereal mixture and mix well.Spread onto three waxed paper-lined baking sheets.Cool and break apart.Store in an airtight container.

Try it out--the stuff is totally addictive!

And more cookies...

And this one I completed last night. I used a styro wreath, covered the base in red ribbon, and covered the entire thing in red buttons. Kind of along the lines of the trees everyone is doing from Tia Bennett and Ali Edwards, but a little different. My house has a ton of red--my favorite color--so this is hanging in my kitchen, for me to enjoy all day long...Hope you're in the midst of holiday crafting as well!